26 lines
1.3 KiB
Plaintext
26 lines
1.3 KiB
Plaintext
mesh network
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A network in which there is no clear difference between clients and servers.
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Instead each computer is a peer and does processing, data storage and routing
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of network traffic. In the ideal mesh network data is content addressable,
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such that it may be seeded by any peer, and data ownership is regulated via
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cryptography.
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Due to the lack of bottlenecks (servers with limited capacity), in theory
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mesh networks are far more scalable than client/server, and may be the
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eventual form that the internet takes. The existence of giant and highly
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inefficient data centers within the current cloud computing paradigm is
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really an attempt to solve the limited server capacity problem, but this
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may eventually be superceded by mesh.
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For optimal performance the apps within a mesh network should work in a
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peer-to-peer manner using data which is content addressable. Attempting to
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run an app designed for client/server within a mesh usually results in
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very poor performance. Since so much current software is designed for
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client/server (often subconsciously, since the paradigm is hegemonic)
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this is why mesh networks currently remain a minority topic.
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Existing examples of large mesh networks are freifunk and guifinet. Common
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mesh protocols are batman, BMX, OLSR and Babel.
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Contrast with client server. |